The Six Disciplines of Agile Marketing

Chapter 21Sustaining Agile Marketing

Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.

—John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States

The good news is that Agile tends to stick around. Somewhere between 70 percent and 80 percent of the organizations I've trained still, after as many as 8 years, practice Agile marketing. That said, it takes work to sustain Agile marketing.

Organizations that focus on the following four issues are most likely to sustain Agile marketing.

Relentless Improvement

Improving your Agile practice requires a relentless commitment to improvement. Organizations that create this learning environment and the mindset that we're always improving what we deliver to customers and how we deliver it, inoculate themselves against the diseases that lead to Agile failures.

What are these diseases? There are more than I can list. Here are a few:

• Lack of transparency. Marketing isn't willing to engage with the business groups, allow them to see marketing for what it is, warts and all, and accept accountability.
• Doing Agile rather than being Agile. Focusing too much on the process (standups, Sprint planning, etc.) and not enough on the outcomes. This is also known as Agile Theater or Agile for Show.
• Dependency on personalities rather than culture. A dynamic leader brings in Agile; when that leader leaves, Agile, if it hasn't become embedded in the culture, leaves too.

The cure for these diseases ...